Swapping Minis – Part 4

Go read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 then come back, I’ll wait.

After about a week of waiting to hear from John’s Auto Care Center letting me know my $700 part was in, on Halloween morning I called them. The part was there, it came through their door late on the previous Friday. We scheduled a day for us to bring the car in, Tuesday the 8th of November (today.)

We were watching the weather closely as snow was predicted for yesterday and today in southern Oregon. For us to get to Medford we have to cross over the Cascades at five thousand feet where the snowfalls are always heavier and the temps were already just barely rising above freezing during the day.

Late last week it looked like the snow was going to start on Monday night into Tuesday then quit, so we made a hotel reservation for Monday night hoping to beat the snow over the mountain Monday morning. This way we could drive back in the afternoon on Tuesday when it would be the warmest and any daytime traffic might have made leeway on clearing a path through any snow.

Midmorning Monday (yesterday) after looking at a couple of traffic cams along our route I made the command decision to call off the trip. The roads were just wet on the first one nearest Klamath Falls, Doak Mountain, but the one nearer to the high point of the trip, Lake of the Woods, was white with just black top visible in two tracks in each lane.

I’m glad we didn’t go because looking at those cams now, about the time we might have been coming home, Doak Mountain & Lake of the Woods look like no fun to be driving on. Probably could have made it if the situation was life or death, but why take a trip like that if you don’t need to.

After looking at the weather for the following week where it was going to be in the 40s I called John’s and rescheduled for next Tuesday the 15th.

Part 5

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Happy Miataversary Edition of SORT
As of Monday, November 7, 2022 at 6:00 PM pacific time:

NA NB NC ND
1992 Mazda Miata 1999 Mazda Miata 2008 Mazda Miata 2016 Mazda Miata
Thirty-three years ago on this date our first Miata was picked up at the local Mazda dealer after an 108 day wait (story here.) Since then there has been a Miata in the garage, not the same one though. The 1990 NA was traded in for another NA in 1995. The 1995 was traded in 2003 for a new NB version. When the NC generation arrived in 2005 we test drove one and didn’t really like it, so the 2003 stayed. We considered getting a 2010 NC when the 2003 rolled past 100k, but still didn’t the like the NC. In 2015 when the ND generation arrived we test drove one of them and ended up with mixed feelings about. With the 2003 NB getting tired, a year later we lucked into a good deal on a 2002 NB, our current car, with 120k fewer miles and snapped it up.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 1976 BMW 2002 Sold for $36,000 on 11/1/22
Off-Road: 2001 Jeep Cherokee Sold for $27,527 on 11/1/22
Touring: 2008 Chevrolet Corvette Sold for $37,000 on 11/5/22

Bicycle Tires

Last week’s Tire Juggling post got me thinking about our collection of bicycles and their tires. We currently own five bicycles, one tandem, two road bikes and two mountain bikes. Every one of those bikes have different size tires on them. Our tandem has 26″ tires. My mountain bike because it has a large size frame it is mounted on 29″ tires and Donna’s being a size small frame came with 27.5″ tires. My road bike has 700c tires while her road bike has 27″ rubber.

Whenever we go for a mountain bike ride I carry two different size spare tubes and trust me, those 29″ & 27.5″ MTB tubes are big. At least with the road bikes, a 700c or 27″ tube will work with either size size and for the tandem a 26″ tube is all it takes.

If 5 bikes sounds like a lot for two people, ha, at one time in the 90’s we had seven. We had a pair of dedicated club ride road bikes and a pair of road bikes set up for commuting to work. We had a pair of Bridgestone mountain bikes and a Santana Sovereign tandem. But those 7 bikes required only 3 different tire/tube sizes, the tandem and road bikes were on 700c tires, the commuting bikes sported 27″ tires and the mountain bikes rode on 26″ tires.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Actual Halloween Edition of SORT
As of Monday, October 31, 2022 at 6:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1976 BMW 2002 2001 Jeep Cherokee 2008 Chevrolet Corvette
Happy Halloween, but with last week’s trio of orange cars and this week’s
three, that is probably quite enough cars of that color for the year.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 2007 Porsche 911 GT3 RS Sold for $236,000 on 10/25/22
Off-Road: 1974 Ford Bronco Bid to $58,000 on 10/28/22
Touring: 1977 Volvo 244 DL Sold for $7,300 on 10/30/22

Tire Juggling

The last couple of years when it came time to put snow tires on the 2013 Mini for the winter I would take the all-seasons off and mount up the non-studded Blizzaks and MSW wheel package we bought from Tire Rack. Because the Miata and the Mini both had 15″ wheels with the same bolt pattern I could take those all-seasons and put them on the Miata. I’d then take those ultra high performance tires off the Miata and store them. You don’t drive on them when the temperature is below 40 degrees because they turn rock hard and stop handling/riding well.

Even though the Mini’s tires fit on the car they weren’t a perfect fit, they would scrape against the plastic inner fender liners when I turn the steering wheel almost all the way in either direction. This was really okay, because it was not like I was going to drive it in the snow or take a trip in it. This was just so the Miata could be driven on dry roads about once a week to keep the battery charged and give the car a little exercise keeping from having to winterize it while it sat for 4-ish months.

Well, the new Mini has thrown this routine into disarray. The 2013 was a 2nd generation of the “new” Mini and the 2016 we just bought is a 3rd generation, besides growing a few inches in all directions they changed to a 5 lug wheel. So, now what do I do about putting an all-season tire on the Miata in the winter? Turns out the solution was relatively easy.

After test driving the 2016 Mini we realized that we were going to need new tires for the car. CarMax put on two new tires because they were worn down enough as to not be safe and replaced them with a bargain Chinese brand that were very noisy. Maybe the 6-year old OEM Michelins contributed to the sound some too. I went to TireRack and found a Grand Touring All-Season that was the quietest of all the options, the Kumho Majesty 9 Solus TA91. We still wanted to maintain the ease of wheel swapping that we had previously, the Kumhos were ordered mounted and balanced on their own set of rims.

While the lug count on the 2016 Mini changed, the wheel diameter stayed the same at 15 inches, so that meant we could keep using the 2-year old Blizzaks, we just needed some 5-lug wheels to put them on. Those wheels were literally right in front of us, the current wheels that on the 2016 Mini. All I had to do drive to a local tire store in the Mini with the old Mini’s winter tire package and have them flip flop them. So, now the new Mini sports the Blizzaks on the OEM wheels and the crappy tires are on the MSW Type 22T rims, that as you can see above, I’ve put on the Miata as its winter wear.

Swapping Minis – Part 3

Go read Part 1 and Part 2 and come back, I’ll wait.

When I got off that phone call with CarMax on Saturday, I posted a question on the Mini forum to see if anyone had any ideas or had seen this “no high beam shutoff” issue before. I got a quick reply that it sounded like it was the switch assembly because the ‘flash to pass’ function didn’t work either. They had looked it up somewhere and it is a $700 part.

So, when Monday rolled around, before I called the CarMax service department, I called the shop in Medford, John’s Auto Care Center, and get their opinion. Once again, they passed me along to Dean. He didn’t tell me to run away from this one too, but said that I should bring the car over so he could hook it up to their diagnostic machine to read the codes, if any, and check that the right sequence of events occurs on the CAN (Controller Area Network) bus. We scheduled an appointment for Friday the following week.

On that Friday we got up, had breakfast and drove over the Cascades to Medford. After a quick stop at our favorite bagel place, we made it to John’s. In an effort to ingratiate us to the staff Donna had baked some chocolate chip cookies the night before and we gave them a couple dozen of them when we checked in. After maybe 15 minutes of chilling in the waiting room, the friendly voice on the phone, Dean in the flesh, came in and said, “Follow me.” So I did. We walked out to where the car was and he got in the drivers seat, while I plopped down into the passenger spot. He had his big ol’ tablet plugged into the OBDII port.

I then got a brief synopsis on how the high beam system works. Back in the day when you turn the high beams on or off you’d push or pull the stalk and that would activate a relay that switched voltage between a couple of wires. But now in the modern world pushing (or pulling) on the stalk sends a signal to the main ECU which then passes it to the two headlight modules who in turn signal the LEDs to change state. Looking at the tablet we could see confirmation that the main ECU got our request for the high beams to come on and then on the next screen we could see the headlight module getting our request and the high beams would come on. Pulling back on the stalk, the ECU never got a signal. Dean agreed that the combination switch was more than likely the culprit.

We walked back inside and he looked up how much the Kombi Switch would be and whoever it was on the Mini forum was dead on, its actual cost is $704.68, which they have to order from Mini of Portland. Because it was late in the day Dean said, “Let me work this up and I’ll email you the repair quote. “You’ll probably get it before you get home.” Total for the part, labor, programming the car to talk to the new switch and miscellaneous shop supplies came to a grand total of $1,092.33.

When I called the CarMax service guy on Monday to see if they had a problem with that number and they said, “Nope, go ahead. Just make sure the repair shop have no issue with taking a credit card payment over the phone.” When I hung up I called John’s back and was told that was AOK with them and they would order the part. Now we wait.

Part 4

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Pre-Halloween Edition of SORT
As of Monday, October 24, 2022 at 6:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
2007 Porsche 911 GT3 RS 1974 Ford Bronco 1977 Volvo 244 DL
If a 911 GT3 wasn’t already a hard core sports car, let’s add the RS for more. Almost too pretty to go off-roading in, but we’ll be going for it anyway. This car is for the person who digs retro road cycling and vintage Volvos.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 1990 Mazda Miata Sold for $13,000 on 10/22/22
Off-Road: 1988 Jeep Wrangler Sold for $21,988 on 10/18/22
Touring: 1952 Hudson Hornet Sold for $29,750 on 10/19/22